June, Today And Tomorrow – A Yaro Update
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June was a unique month for me in terms of blogging and business. A roller-coaster ride would be an apt description. Traffic growth at all my sites has been fantastic and in the last few weeks I have enjoyed a few consecutive days of 3000+ uniques here at Entrepreneur’s Journey. While that’s less than many other blogs out there I know it’s a lot more than the greater majority, so I’m doing something right.
As I reported my business has managed to turnover a profit and despite the occasional murmurings in my head that I want to leave it, I’m still here, still steering the ship and heading into the 6th year of operations, and my third full time tax year. Overall I’m excited about where the business is going, so I suspect I’ll be here next tax year saying the same things, at least I hope I will be!
Controversy
As you know doubt are aware of and probably enjoyed watching (you love your day time blogosphere soapies don’t you!), thanks to some mis-communication on my part, what should have been a minor thing blew up into a blogosphere incident of tremendous proportions (at least in my mind it was), which continued long after what I did set it off. I’ve said my sorrys to those people I felt I owed apologies to and have moved forward after a sleepless night or two.
I’d like to reiterate that I am not involved with any spam sites and I do not recommend spamming practices. If you search the web you will find my name attached to very few domains, most of which I have talked about on this blog. If you ever see my content on scraper sites or automatic generated blogs it’s because my content is being ripped off FROM my blogs, not that I have set these sites up (I would be pretty stupid to rip off my own content) and I’m actually working to have some of the sites shut down since they are basically stealing from me. Some of my articles are circulated as part of being published on EzineArticles.com, which is how article marketing works and is with my permission. I actually have a very small presence online in general and I’m quite open with everything I do – this blog is testament to that.
I do recommend products that could be used for spam – anything about improving search engine rankings, tips for better pay per click advertising campaigns, improving Google AdSense (or any advertising media) results, building websites, online marketing or pretty much anything to do with making money online can be abused by spammers. That’s the nature of business – there are always bad fish and they have access to the same tools that everyone else does, so when I help the good people I am inadvertently helping the bad people too. In my opinion it’s the job of the organizations who provide the income streams, such as Google, to make it difficult or impossible for people to abuse their systems.
Which brings me to another point – there is something wrong with AdSense. I’m not saying the system is bad, it works fine, what seems to be the problem is the effect it has on people. Once they taste the income greed sets in, some think only of the money and will go to any lengths to increase their earnings. It’s only a minority of course, certainly most AdSense publishers are good people, but the fact that there is so much negative energy and so many very charged opinions on the topic of AdSense spam shows that there is something wrong, something that Google needs to address, because the negativity will come back to bite them.
As a Google AdWords advertiser I’m experiencing pretty poor results on the content network (the AdSense network) and I think I’m not the only one, as a few of my colleagues have reported the same for all kinds of different campaigns. AdWords for search is fantastic, it always has been which probably has a lot do with the fact when people use a search engine they need answers, hence AdWords ads are valuable and relevant. AdWords campaigns on websites – the content network made up of AdSense publishers – doesn’t come close to providing valuable results, which yet again may be a sign that something needs to change regarding how AdSense works. I don’t know, these are just some thoughts based on my recent experiences, I’m sure Google has the data and are working to make things better.
Meanderings
Besides the lessons learnt on communication, I’ve also had a think about some other things. When controversy involving you happens you need to stop and take heed of why it happened, what it means and how you need to adjust what you are doing. Here are some of things I have been thinking about -
Affiliate Promotions
It’s clear people are hyper sensitive to affiliate marketing especially when you are a blogger with a profile based on integrity and credibility. Whether I intended to or not, I have managed to build my blogging personality into one of these personalities. My blog and my personal brand carry some weight and consequently what I write on my blogs are under scrutiny to a higher degree. When I make mistakes the backlash can be significant depending on what I did and who disagrees with it, regardless of my intentions. This fact alone has already started to impact the way I write blog posts when it comes to talking about other people’s products and actions. I suspect the paranoia will reduce, but I’ve definitely changed.
I’ve heard the grumblings that people don’t like the trend of affiliate promotions here at E-J. I’ve felt the transition myself and I’ve realized it’s not healthy for my blog or me. When I originally began blogging I started by producing content without thinking about specific ways I could make money from it. I wanted to teach people everything I knew and give as much as I could for free. If I was to make money It would happen as a result of providing value and as a side effect, the focus was 100% on free value. In the recent months perhaps the scale has changed slightly and my focus shifted towards making money to the degree that it impacted the quality of my blogging. I was still well aware that value is vital for success, but perhaps the percentage dropped a little.
Of course I’m not going to stop promoting via affiliate marketing. I like doing reviews and I know people appreciate my recommendations and feedback when I use a product or service because it helps them to determine whether the product or service is right for them. I rely on other people’s reviews and opinion when I make my initial choices and I don’t mind if the person who provides this opinion gets an affiliate commission. I consider it thanks for the work they put in and I’m sure many of you consider it as thanking me when you buy something via my affiliate links. This style of relationship is fine, as long as profiting isn’t the main focus – that’s when the quality drops and the errors occur.
What I am going to do is tighten up somewhat what I choose to promote. I will only promote products I have produced myself, I have made use of, read or sampled or know and trust the source well. Putting it simply I’ll endeavour to be as transparent and relevant as possible whenever I review a product, even more so than I have been in the past.
Value Proposition
My intentions are to move the focus back to giving as much value as I can, which as the universe intends, usually results in greater rewards anyway – financial and otherwise. I’ve already noticed an increase in rewards just from the slight realignment of my intentions that I have made mentally in the last few days. I think this really validates that giving as much as you can for free is the best formula for receiving value in return.
Terms of Service
One thing I will definitely be doing in the coming weeks is to put together a terms of service. It’s something I’ve meant to do for a while since I really need a set of rules for how I govern my blogs to be clear and public, so when I do take action I have justification for it and don’t appear quite so random.
Topic Re-focus
Another thing I noticed is that I’m breaking my own rules somewhat regarding staying on topic. Entrepreneur’s Journey has been an evolving blog and while it has a general theme at the moment I think the topic range needs tighten up, as does Small Business Branding’s purpose.
I’ve let my motivation take me where it’s wanted to go regarding the content of my blogs, most of which has been well received by you, which is great, but I know I’ve probably turned a few people off when suddenly a personal development topic follows on from one about getting traffic to blogs, which came before one on how to use pay per click advertising. While all my topics fit well enough under the banner of an “entrepreneur’s journey“, I feel I’m at a place now where I know where my interests lie and where I can provide value. Some changes are necessary to better reflect this and clarify what my blogging is about.
I’m currently planning to start a blog specifically on personal development for twenty somethings (people in the 20ish age bracket – young adults like myself). It will be the repository for all my future writings like the opinion and self development articles you have seen here at Entrepreneur’s Journey. I will no longer publish any personal development pieces on E-J. I don’t know whether this new blog will take off or whether I have enough motivation and content in me to keep it going but I do know it needs to have it’s own place on the web. Even if I publish only one article a month it will be nice to have a place to write about subjects related to personal development with a clear focus, and I definitely enjoy the topic.
There will be a similar story regarding topics related to blogging. The Blog Traffic School Pre-Launch Blog, after the launch of the course, will become a regular blog on blog traffic and Entrepreneur’s Journey will no longer have topics related to blogging unless it’s specifically related to Internet business and not appropriate for the Blog Traffic School blog (for example using blogs as a marketing tool for an Internet business). I think it’s important to separate the topic of blogging into it’s own blog and it makes sense for me to align that with my course on blog traffic.
The focus of Entrepreneur’s Journey will return to what it was originally – 100% Internet business and entrepreneurship, and no doubt the topics will largely reflect what I am personally learning and doing regarding my online enterprises. I plan to produce more reviews since I’ve been reading and testing products lately as part of building Blog Traffic School and I’d like to pass on what I have learnt to you. The podcasts will also continue as they have been and I will probably start to release some Camtasia presentations as well since I have recently bought the software.
I’m still not sure exactly where I am going with Small Business Branding. It’s been a great addition to my blogging family and has paid dividends beyond the purchase price but I’m still not exactly sure what I’m trying to achieve with it. Time will tell where this blog takes me.
None of these changes are set in stone of course, but that’s my current thinking.
Too Many Blogs!
Looking at my ever expanding portfolio of blogs one thing is clear – I can’t sustain the level of writing I have done at Entrepreneur’s Journey for the past year on every blog I run, I am not Darren Rowse. Entrepreneur’s Journey, Small Business Branding, a new personal development blog, Blog Traffic School Blog and another blog related to blog traffic (this one is still a secret), makes for a huge writing workload. I’m aiming to reduce my writing workload, not increase it, so I need to carefully plan what I want to get out of blogging and where I can best give back. I really need to 80/20 my blogging.
To be honest I’m not entirely sure what to do since I don’t know where my motivation is going to take me. I have a lot of vested interest in Entrepreneur’s Journey given I have worked hard to build it into what it is and I enjoy writing here, so I don’t see this changing for a while yet. However every blogger has to realize that they can’t blog forever, at some point they will have to stop writing and even the most prolific of us, those like Darren Rowse and Dane Carlson, won’t be able to keep up the frenetic pace forever. Something has to change eventually.
Ideally I want my income to not be dependent on active blogging so I can be free to write about what I want to, when I want to. I’d like to write a book one day, something like the Alchemist – personal development in the guise of fiction, and I think a blog is a great way to start creating the chapters and build up a ground roots following. Right now I don’t rely on the income from blogging to live off, but it really helps, and with the launch of Blog Traffic School I certainly want to stay heavily involved with it. Blogging is definitely part of my future, especially as long as I intend for writing to be a part of it.
Blogging Is Not Passive Income
Blogging is not a passive form of income so any blogger thinking about using blogs as their main source of income need to plan for those times when you can’t blog or no longer want to. If your income is based on posting 10 new articles a week on your blog so you make money from the good old formula of traffic+advertising, you do not have a financially sustainable operation because of the dependency on your labor. I want a financially sustainable business which generates passive income and grants me the freedom to blog when and how I want to.
Can blogging provide this? Perhaps. I think it can certainly be part of the picture but I’m not sure exactly how yet given that blogs are such “active” creatures and if update frequency slows down or even stops altogether they tend to die off eventually.
I’m not sure what the future holds for me and blogging mostly because despite knowing what I enjoy I am still not sure exactly how to make it all work together to create a financially secure lifestyle with abundant freedoms. I’m pretty close now, I’m not struggling for money and I have a lot of freedoms, but it’s not there yet, there is more work to be done.
I suspect there will always be more work to be done…
The Immediate Future
Now it’s time to stop speculating on the future and think of today and tomorrow. I’ve had a bunch of generous people submit articles in response to my call for contributions to cover me while I take a holiday from content production on my blogs during this month. The articles will be released over the coming weeks, some on Entrepreneur’s Journey and some on Small Business Branding, and cover quite a range of topics which I suspect you will enjoy – there is something for everyone. You will get to meet some great bloggers too so be sure to check out their blogs if you like their article.
I’ll be spending most of my time in July finishing the Blog Traffic School course and then getting it into the online system I have just finished setting up. All the details about the course will be released on the Pre-Launch Blog, so stay tuned to that blog if you want more information on building your blog’s traffic.
I’ll see you online,
Yaro Starak
Evolving Entrepreneur
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I think that the level of criticism you received last week for posting a link to a free ebook shows how you have become respected as a blogger. 　
There are a lot of new products coming on the market in the $100-$200 range that are offering a generous 50 per cent commission for affiliates. It is tempting not to want to plug these products, even though you believe they will help your readers, but unless you have benefited directly by buying and then using the product, promoting a pre-release could potentially bite you back.
I am not saying you are guilty of doing this in anyway, but all internet marketers need to take care if they want to build real long term loyalty and credibility.
Keep up the good work and keep those podcasts coming. How about Markus from Plenty of Fish?
I think Mikes comments are well founded, as I’ve said previously (in often deleted comments
) that you have built up a high level of respect amongst your readers, and hence they (indeed we) all expect the highest standards in return Yaro.
Best of luck none the less, apologies on the messiness, but I’m still reading, and I know that you’ve learnt from this. Everyone needs a good blooding now and then, and I’ve had more than my fair share as well
Yaro, what turned me off was when you started posting affiliate links to products you had not even tried. As a potential buyer, I want to know what the product did for you, it’s features, it’s benefits, whether it’s easy to use, whether it does what the sales page says it will do and so on. On a couple of occasions, it’s *appeared* that you were more interested in getting the sale for the Aff commission…
So, it is good to see that the blog is going to realign. I think (and have posted) that you are spread too thin.
Good luck, Gary
Integrity is indeed essential for credibility!
Good luck with your work in the future!
)
- DJ -
Yaro you are awesome! I have benefited SO much from entrepreneurs journey and have appreciated all you do to help those at the bottom end of capatilism. The fact that you are so open about your feelings and honest in your self-evaluation regarding complaints of overly critical people makes me appreciate your blog even more. I hope you know that there are hundreds and hundreds of people who, like me, have nothing but grattitude for what you do and look forward to every new post or newsletter you produce.
All I know is that since I started reading your blog and implementing your traffic suggestions visits to my site have exploded. Thanks for all your hard work.
What originally attracted me to your writing was the fact you were doing something different to affiliate marketing, blogs, and selling ebooks and various products. In my opinion BetterEdit is what sets you apart, as well as the fact that you’ve tried your hand at non-internet business.
I was hoping that was the direction you would continue in, so Blog Traffic School is a bit of a disappointment for me, personally.
I never really got Small Business Branding and how it differs from Entrepreneur’s Journey. I seldom see you talking about branding, which is a bit strange. Other than to expand your ‘blog network’, I don’t understand why you bought the domain. Talk about branding!
There is so much to say about entrepreneurship that that isn’t about internet marketing. My favourite articles have been things like your poster campaign, credit card payments, renting an office… Small doable things that nobody talks about.
Thanks for all the comments and feedback everyone, it’s always interesting to hear what people think and what they would like to see come from you.
It goes to show that it’s a real juggle to meet the desires of your audience/customers/clients/readers as well as meet your own needs and follow your motivation.
Alan – thanks for your comments regarding entrepreneurship, and I know exactly what you want – the really practical stories from experience on topics you yourself may one day need to address. I often find those types of articles my favorite too because they are so applicable and practical.
I definitely have intentions to write more of those but to be honest since I don’t run an offline business anymore and my own energies are towards blogging and Internet business (betteredit is still in there) it’s hard to come up with new content about offline business – I’m just not having any more experiences in that area.
While I was running the English school I was learning a lot about traditional bricks and mortar business, but at the moment I’m learning more about product launches online, building membership sites, joint ventures and marketing online, and that’s where my blogging is going to go – I can only deliver value from areas I have skills to draw on.
Unfortunately if that means losing some people who may have jumped on board for the more traditional entrepreneurship topics I started with during the earlier days of this blog I just have to accept it. I can’t meet everyone’s needs.
However I’m sure there will be lots of topics you will still enjoy, you just may have to suffer through the odd topic that just isn’t relevant, which I think is the case for every blog and reader – no one is interested in absolutely everything a blogger writes.
That’s the beauty of blogging – as long as you keep bringing in new readers you know you are satisfying more people than you are turning away (that’s sort of like cashflow in business) – the trend is positive, then you just need to keep doing what you are doing and things will grow. If things trend negatively then it is time to make changes.
Regarding Small Business Branding – yes, you echo a comment some other people have made and I myself have also considered – I just don’t write about branding, so the name is off – poor branding indeed!
One thing is for sure, I’m not going to try and squeeze out topics on branding since it would be painful for me. I certainly have some topics in me on branding, especially about personal branding, but not enough to keep a blog going. My intent was to stretch that branding title to include marketing as well so I could branch out, but I think I’ve not even managed to stick to that niche either – it’s clearly too similar to Entrepreneur’s Journey – the distinction between the two blogs needs to change.
As I said I don’t know where SBB is going so I’m still going to play with it and see what readers respond to. I definitely want to get a better definition, for my own sake too, it’s hard to come up with topics when you are not sure what you are meant to be writing about. It may even come down to bringing in another writer to actually write about branding and small business. I’m not sure.
What I do know is that Small Business Branding is very well established so buying it was definitely a smart thing to do, even despite my (unintentional) efforts to water down it’s positioning. The domain is great, I could never change it, and the site gets lots of new visitors coming in from search engines and links bringing in more people to my writing. They may perhaps be a little confused about the topics not quite matching the title, but I expect they will enjoy what they read enough to stick around.
All that being said, yes, it’s a total hodge podge isn’t it!
Well there’s a brain dump if I ever saw one!
Although I would love articles about offline business, it makes perfect sense that you would only draw from your experience. I suppose I’m most interested in any non-information-based-product experience you have. BetterEdit falls clearly into this as a service based business. I am interested in information products and marketing, but everyone else is already talking about such things. Much less is being written about service (or even product) based online businesses, as far as I can tell.
Hmmm, taking a break from blogging!
I can imagine my self doing the same some time in the future, and i know that most of my sites that depend so highly on fresh content on a daily basis will fall behind.
Nevertheless, I think one issue that is perhaps affecting you Yaro is your interest level in the topics that you write about dropping a little? I mean I know it would for me, its hard to stay on topic all the time.
In a way I am kind of glad the blogs I run are all completely different topics, gives my mind a break. I think thats important. You def need a personal blog to vent and rant on about just random shit, i find it really handy.
Alborz – Actually I don’t think my interest levels have dropped, perhaps a tiny bit. The main thing is that my writing mind has been going to the course I’m writing and after pumping out 2000 words for that in a day I don’t feel like writing much more.
I’m really looking forward to getting back into blogging once the course is done actually as I have a lot of articles I want to write.
A personal venting blog is probably a good idea too – but that would be even more writing!
Yaro,
I’ve been a fan of your writing. Please keep your good work — a lot of people really appreciate your hard work, honesty, sensitivity, and entreprenurial spirit.
A few suggestions (based on my limited knowledge of you from your blog):
1) given the amount of work you’re doing, you might want to cut down the number of blogs you’ll be writing — i think you might be doing too much. Sometimes you had to make the painful decision to cut down on things.
2) have more user contributed content — you’ve already had the brand and traffic.
3) I’m not sure about this, but i’m wondering if it’s an elusive dream for you to think about having a passive income stream without “working” — be honest, you’ve a life style that most people will envy. However, I think meaningful work is actually what keep people alive — as long as you love what you do, just keep doing it and have fun and make enough money.
Hi Bill, thanks for the comments, here’s my response -
1) I think you are right but I’m not making any decisions right now until I finish Blog Traffic School. After that is done my writing focus will revert back to my blogs, rather than my course on blogging, so I’ll be in a better position to assess what I am capable of and want to do.
2) Perhaps – to be honest I prefer a blog to be written by one person so you can really get a feel for the author and I like that my blog represents me in a lot of ways. Sure you don’t lost this as a result of having guest writers, but you do dilute the message a bit. I think sites like Performancing.com do it well.
3) Very good point. I agree, certainly I want to be doing *something* and meaningful work is crucial for happiness and blogging certainly has been a part of that. What I want, which I am sure most other people want, is the financial freedom to stop and start and change whatever that meaningful work is without having to worry about financial concerns. If I had a million in the bank then that would be the freedom to really just do whatever I want when I want, which may be blogging, but I don’t want a situation where when I stop doing something my income supports disappear.